I still remember the first time I looked at paramecia under a microscope. It was so cool to see those funky ovoids swimming around, bumping against little algae. Then something went horribly wrong! They stopped moving and wrinkled up. I ran to the teacher and asked what went wrong. I had let the water evaporate, Read More
Coyotes Prove Too Clever for Protective Collars
Many Native American traditions hold that coyote is a clever trickster. One reason for that identification is that coyotes are indeed fairly clever creatures. A research report from the USDA serves to illustrate the fact. Researchers put protective collars around sheep, because most coyote attacks on livestock go for the neck. Prior to testing, the Read More
 Richard Gaughan July 31st, 2012
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Measuring Reproductive Effort—Hard Work Rewarded with Success?
If you’ve ever hung around a bar at closing time, you’ve probably made some anecdotal observations about reproductive effort, that is, the amount of energy an individual of one sex will expend to mate with an individual of the opposite sex. To make that kind of measurement a little more quantitative, scientists at the University Read More
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Richard Gaughan July 31st, 2012
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Unique Database Design Speeds Bioinformatic Analysis
Biological lab equipment is becoming more capable, more automated, and more productive. That’s great news, except that the explosion in lab capability has carried a concomitant explosion of data. The trick now is to extract data from dissimilar experiments—data that will reflect different aspects of the structure or function of a molecule, cell, or organism. Read More
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Richard Gaughan July 31st, 2012
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How an Ultrasonic Cleaner makes the Brass Section Sparkle
Here's how to use an ultrasonic cleaner to quickly and safely clean and restore the shine to brass instruments. Read More
 Rachel Kohn July 31st, 2012
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Tiny Bubbles in the Wine? No—In the Ultrasonic Cleaner
It takes a very high degree of specialization to become an expert in a field…er…subfield. Hmm…maybe “topic” would be a better word choice. Take this study for example. Researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London examined the bubble-bubble interaction in a weak acoustic standing wave field. Well, they actually looked at Read More
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Richard Gaughan July 31st, 2012
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School Video Demonstrates Soil Characteristic Measurements
If you didn’t know this was an original video from Wildlands School, the first thirty seconds of their logo, in about thirty different forms, should be enough to give you a hint. After that, however, they get to work, weighing empty crucibles on a scientific digital scale, filling the crucibles with damp soil and weighing Read More
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Richard Gaughan July 31st, 2012
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How to Test Water for Contamination When Resources are Limited
The availability of clean, uncontaminated drinking water has been called one of the most significant public health advances of the millennium. High praise, but not undeserved, because water is essential to human life, but contaminated water is deadly. Still, there are many regions on the planet where the infrastructure is not up to the task Read More
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Richard Gaughan July 30th, 2012
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Silt Fences an Easy Way to Quantify Soil Erosion
“Soil erosion is a major land management issue due to stringent regulations on water quality and efforts to reduce the impact of various activities on sedimentation.” With that sentence, two USDA Forestry Sciences Laboratory researchers open their discussion of using silt fences to measure soil erosion. The idea is to position a fabric fence in Read More
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Richard Gaughan July 30th, 2012
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To Deliver Crane Payloads Safely and Accurately, Consider All Modes
Crane scales are integrated into the hoist mechanism of cranes, where they can be used to weigh loads so material shipments can be tracked and verified, and they can also be used to ensure a crane is not operated over its load limit. Here’s an interesting consideration, though: Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology Read More
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Richard Gaughan July 30th, 2012
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